Month: October 2019

Beef or Turkey?

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I went out to the old house to get some stew meat for dinner yesterday. I was going to be fencing all day and didn’t want to mess with something in the evening. I found beef soup bones and stew meat. I was going to just toss them in the slow cooker and remembered we had some frozen broth. I am trying to clean out the in house freezer. So I tossed in the frozen chunk of broth base and two packages of frozen beef, some spices and onions. I went outside and picked fresh carrots and dug up fresh potatoes. I cut up the carrots and washed up the potatoes. I set my phone alarm so I could come back to the house for lunch and toss it all into the slow cooker. When I came back at lunch time I realized that I had used turkey base! Annmarie and I had just had a discussion about me labeling frozen packages because I brought in two things from freezer and neither was labeled. I asked Annmarie and she didn’t know. She thinks one might be prime rib. I put it in the fridge to thaw out, I should be able to tell when it is no longer a solid lump. The stew was fantastic and no one noticed the discrepancy! Another win for mystery freezer food.

Our washing machine fabric softener dispenser stopped working last week. Annmarie wanted me to call the repairman but I figured I should dig into it first. I had to call the plumber to come fix our deep sink faucet. It runs continuously, he should be here some time this week to look at it. I tried tightening down the packing but it only worked for a little bit and now the handle moved 360 degrees and the leak is worse.

So I watched a You Tube video on how to clean out the fabric softener dispenser. WOW, it took me almost an hour to clean it out, I had to resort to using a tooth brush to get all the little nooks and crannies clean. It works now but I need to add that to my list, needs to happen more than every few years.

I went out and started putting woven wire up on the fence. I always forget how long it takes to put the clips on. They take forever and each T post gets 4 clips on the woven wire. I got 2/3 of the woven wire up and Tex came out in the late evening and got the last 1/3 up and top clipped to hold it in place. I will finish clipping it in place today and hopefully get the gates hung also. Then I can start marking out the next section of fencing tomorrow. I still have one more week of vacation.

I contacted the grant people and once the fence is finished they will come out and take pictures and get the supplies reimbursed.

Old man auger

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Sunday, I got out early and started to work on drilling more post holes. My poor post hole auger is on its last leg. I swapped teeth around again so each side has one half decent tooth and one side its on the outside and the other inside. I was hoping between the two they could make some headway. It did work kinda. The holes took 20 minutes to dig. I had to keep changing the angle of the auger with the tractor to get the working teeth to dig in. I felt like an old man pushing steak around in his mouth to chew it up enough for swallowing! It was painful. I hope the tractor supply place has them on hand but we got all 19 holes dug out. We had to finish 5 by hand, one had a huge rock in it and the other was chock full of fist size rocks. My shear bolt did not break 1/4″ bolt but one of my auger support bolts 7/16 sheared off. I was unable to get the new bolt as the auger had shifted due to the other bolt bending. So I unbolted the other bolt and attempted to beat it out. It would not budge, but. I was able to install the new bolt. After the beating the nut would not go back on so I just put a new bolt in my tool carrier mounted on the tractor and told Tex we would replace it when it self extricates. It held up for 3 more holes.

It was a beautiful morning, overcast, not too hot, not too cold and I only needed a long sleeve shirt to be comfortable. This is necessary so that when you start working hard you can remove more clothing.

Tex had promised me he would be there in the morning as he had made a commitment. I have to say that at times I think teenagers are easier to deal with than early 20’s adults. Call it my personal experience bias but it is frustrating. Tex did not show up. I set a couple of posts and then went to set a gate post that Tex had dropped in its hole. It was too close, the hole needed to be moved back four inches. I could not pull the post out of the ground! I had seen him struggling with it from across the field on Saturday but I had not lifted a railroad tie yet. I should have known after getting slapped down by the fencing supplies on Saturday. I was attempting to remove the straps holding everything onto the trailer and four ties had shifted and were leaning onto the four gates running the length of the trailer. I was standing right next to the trailer, my shoulder next to the gates when I let the cross strap loose. Those ties dropped over and slammed the gate into my shoulder driving me to the ground. Luckily they did not leap off the trailer and body check me to the ground. I laid there sprawled out on the ground making sure I was still in one piece then used the tractor to pull the railroad ties off of the trailer. My two sudden potentially harrowing instances on the farm have come from shifting loads.

I had to use the tractor to pull the post out of the ground and then had cut the hole four more inches. The ground is still pretty dang hard and dry despite the green everywhere.

I hammered in the long stretch of T posts there is a slight curve in my line. I must need more practice but after averaging the number of hits required to drive in a single T post (15 smacks) I was unwilling to redo the entire section for a 5 inch arc. I will just pull the fence tighter. I knew we were working hard when my forearm started to cramp up from using the breaker bar and post hole driver. It feels like someone is pinching me with a hot pair of pliers. I love getting more “mature”.

Tex did show up at 1045 and worked till dark. He overslept, thought he had set an alarm. Like I said, teenagers may be easier. We made great progress and got all 19 railroad ties set in gravel and ready to go. They were so heavy that Tex made me lift my one side on every railroad tie we put in the ground! He was not going to move them alone at all. The very last two we almost had to use the tractor on they were so heavy.

Is it Winter yet?

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Yesterday Tex came out and we did the cleanup and winterization stuff. There are still three hoses that need to be rolled up and put in the shed but the rest of the stuff is done. Tex got leaves washed off the low roof as they hold the moisture and can cause leaks. We got the front hillside planted with clover! I will be happy if only 50% of the seed takes off, anything to choke out the cheatgrass that is currently growing there. We had a talk and Tex agreed to help me with the lower fence.

I put gravel in the Alcatraz area so the butcher cows don’t make a mess down by the spring. We will see how it works in a few weeks when they get put in there for the all you can eat buffet of alfalfa.

This is the fence that I got the grant to install. I had been holding off on it but he may leave in January and not come back. I just needed to know that if we started this project he would see it through. He has been a little flakey. He agreed and got my point so Annmarie and I went to town and bought everything we needed for the first section of fence, $2000! This would be why I normally go to the junkyard and buy all my stuff used and beat up.

As soon as I took the tractor down to start drilling holes the cows came running. They thought I was going to feed them. They do not need food, I have confirmed this by putting out a protein block that they are half heartedly occasionally licking on. They are content to go around and eat the grass that is still growing. Once they realized I had nothing for them they wandered off.

I started to drill holes but was getting no where. I decided to look at the teeth on the auger and realized that the outer tooth was almost gone! I swapped the inner and outer teeth hoping that it would work better. It did! Before the day was over I had one long tooth on the outside and on the opposite side I put the long tooth in the inner spot and then flipped my short piece upside down so it would be point out. This worked the best but I also realized that my inner cone is almost worn down to a smooth piece of metal also. I definitely need to do some repair on the auger but for now I just have to use it! Who would guess that after six years I would wear the teeth off of it! Tex laid out and marked all the T post locations and started to clean out the holes I managed to get drilled. I have six holes to finish up tomorrow.

I was unpacking the trailer and a few railroad ties had shifted. I went to loosen the strap and ended up getting swatted to the ground by the gates crashing into me with a few hundred pounds of railroad ties on top of them. It rung my bell but I didn’t black out. I have to say that shifting loads have smacked me around twice and they are not any fun.

I will get the parts for the auger repair this week and my pump upgrade for the sprayer is in the mail. When it comes we will get it installed and the get the sprayer strapped down and ready to go. I want it all prepped and ready to go in the spring. We can feed using the tractor instead of the side by side. I may have to start the thing every couple of months just so it doesn’t forget how to do it.

Rental “mini excavator”

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Last weekend was busy! I had planned to rent a mini backhoe. I had called the rental place and he asked if I had a trailer, I do and then he reserved some “304” backhoe. I went in first thing on Saturday and attempted to pickup said “backhoe”. He looked outside at my small 16′ trailer on the pickup and chuckled. I had been rented a full size backhoe! I would have needed a semi truck and trailer to move it. I pointed to the trackhoe I wanted and was told those are called “mini-excavators”. I got one of those with a thumb so we could clean the sumac out of the ditch. Tex cleaned up and started burn piles while I went to pickup the “mini-excavator”. I only had 8 run hours on the machine so I drove to the upper end before unloading the excavator. I wanted all my equipment time doing productive work. We got about 2/3 of the ditch cleaned out before I resorted to fire and burned out the rest.

We went and dug a ditch for two culverts and I attempted to dig a new drainage ditch but it was going to take another 4 hours of run time at least on the excavator so I had to give up. I could have used the thing for at least 40 hours and not gotten everything done on my to do list. The main reason for renting it was to get the ditch cleaned out and that got done.

The fence on the backside of the creek needs to be moved back away from the water about 10 feet but I need a road put in as I cannot even get the tractor back along the hillside. I am going to ignore it for now and figure it out later.

I did not like running the excavator. I had to pee every hour after a single cup of coffee in the morning! The thing just vibrates and shakes and is constantly pounding your bladder. I shudder to think what it would have been like if I had stayed hydrated throughout the day.

The two upper fields that have been planted look great! They are greening up and growing. I like that, maybe I did something right this time. Once we got back to the house we had to figure out how to change the hitch on the pickup as we had parked the excavator a little too far forward on the trailer. It took about 30 minutes of messing with it to get it changed out. Tex had said he would come out the next day so I spent the evening creating a list of items for him to do on Sunday and I was going to go up and work on the ditch some more with my tractor.

He was a no show! So I spent 1.5 hours cleaning the mini excavator and doing odds and ends. I did manage to get about 4 hours in on the ditch, but had to stop after overheating the tractor. It does not like being ran hard for hours on end on a comfortable day. It gets hot!

I decided that after cleaning the excavator I should clean my own tractor. It took me almost an hour to get all the weeds blown out from every nook and cranny on the tractor. That is the first time this year the mistress has been clean. I even beat on the hood a little bit with a hammer in an attempt to remove the dent. I am going to have to pop the hood off and put it on the anvil and pound out the dent. It is not going to come out easily. Tex had managed to break one of bar lights on the tractor by letting it down and raising the box blade. I am going to have to rearrange the lights on the bar so I don’t repeat this maneuver. I am going back on vacation in a week so I can hopefully get more winterization completed.